Moan, moan, moan----get it off your chest or have a chat

[Maggi Young]

Really, Mark, what a silly question.... is the Aberdeen woman fat? er, um... is a fifteen pound robin fat? 

[Lesley Cox]

Just to throw a cat among the pigeons ( no offence meant, Smokey et al) I'll drop in here my opinion that there are, with Pleiones, as with many other plants, far too many named varieties ....many of which  are extremely difficult to distinguish one from another.
There, I've said it.... light blue touch paper and retire...................

Has the SRGC suddenly transformed itself into the Scottish Bulb Growers Club.....as the last three thousand postings (barring, of course, those infernal and interminable 'Dolomite' images) have all been about snowdrops, narcissus and assorted underground storage organs (no offence intended....I just like to stir the grounds to make the coffee taste sweeter)?

    

It's all the Bulb Despot's fault. Without the Bulb Logs, half the world would never have HEARD of bulbs.

[mark smyth]

Maggi I'll send it this week but I've already had a nibble or four

[Lvandelft]

It's all the Bulb Despot's fault. Without the Bulb Logs, half the world would never have HEARD of bulbs.

Lesley, when I speak for myself, I joined the Forum about 5 or 6 years ago,  mostly because of alpines.
But I still love it, maybe despite, or better because of the BD!

[Maggi Young]

Maggi I'll send it this week but I've already had a nibble or four

That's okay, Mark, at least I'll know not to complain to the post office about mice in the sorting office!


It would be great if we could have some of the growers of say, Dionysias and of the classic Alpines sharing their experiences with us some more though, wouldn't it? I'm thinking of the kinds of plants that probably need alpine-house culture and can pose a real challenge to grow ....think how good it would be for newbies to have some practical advice on those plants.  It seems to me that those folks are the ones who are least likely to share their secrets... it's a pity 

[TC]

COMPUTER MOANS.  I decided to replace my old pc as it seemed to be failing so I invested in a state of the art model -Quad processor, 8Gb RAM, and 1500 Gb hard drives.  It arrived 3 days before Christmas and went back after two hours as the power supply failed.  Whem I got it back then I had to figure out what Windows Vista was all about.  I then discovered that my photo editing programs did not work, neither did my dvd burner software, my scanner nor printer.  A windows update done remotely by Microsoft knocked out my sound system.  It took me 5 days to get an internet connection to work after about 8 hours worth of calls to India !!.  Then I discovered that I could not carry over my saved emails from the old computer and the same thing happened with my internet favourites. I have now to try and get back on to certain email sites and notify them of my new email address.
Unfortunately I had downloaded some family pictures of the grandchildren onto the computer, cleared them off my camera and I now cannot get them on to a disc to save them.  Talking to the support staff from the manufacturer is like speaking to someone fluent in Mandarin Chinese - basically as it is a "software problem" you are on your own. They all seem to imagine that we have degrees in computer science and understand all the terminology of computerspeak.  Could you imagine buying a car, being given the keys and various bits and pieces of the fuel system, steering and no handbook to help you.  That's what buying a computer is like.
 Having been like a bull with third degree piles for two weeks, I have decided that I will take it to a local pc specialist and let them sort it out as anything I try seems to make it worse.  Stick to windows XP as it is a lot less hassle and all gadgets work on it.  On a cheerier note, the weather here has been lousy for weeks -rain-rain and still more.  At least the Bulb show is only 4 weeks away and our first Snowdrops and Hellibores are out with the Camellias showing fat buds.   
End of rant

[tonyg]

TC
Thats a jolly good rant - I actually felt better after reading it
I know what you mean about Vista ... but it does have some redeeming features.  Not being able to load my old photo software is the biggest pain though
Rain here too - and guess who's biking to work this week?

[David Nicholson]

My sympathies Tom, they are all I can offer I'm afraid.

[Maggi Young]

I send my sympathies, too, Tom but I can also offer a consoling hug when I see you in Dunblane... of course I realise this may not be of much comfort to you,but at least it shows empathy!

[TC]

Hope is on the horizon.  When all else fails find someone who knows what they are doing.  A local computer repair firm, who repaired my last one, will sort it for me for a reasonable sum of money. My problem is that the machine I have is geared to run on a 64 bit system and most software suppliers have not yet written or produced drivers to cope with this -  are you with me?
Its like buying a car to be told that we have not yet built roads to drive it on.
We were just about ready to go out and the bucketing rain has started again.  I think Scotland could make a fortune by exporting bulk tankers of high quality water to the rest of the world.  So, I will just have to stay in and amuse myself with playing my new guitar.  I am also taking up the banjo again - after 35 years -although I will need to make some minor repairs to it.  After looking up some sites on the net, I discovered that I may have a highly collectable model.  Cindy has decided that we are going out for a walk -around TKmax in town.  I feel my credit card wants to hide !
                     

[Lesley Cox]

Hope is on the horizon.  When all else fails find someone who knows what they are doing.  A local computer repair firm, who repaired my last one, will sort it for me for a reasonable sum of money. My problem is that the machine I have is geared to run on a 64 bit system and most software suppliers have not yet written or produced drivers to cope with this -  are you with me?
Its like buying a car to be told that we have not yet built roads to drive it on.
                     

I bought a first digital camera for my daughter, for Christmas. It had a carry case included in the package so it didn't occur to me that there was no SD card included. When Susan told me and I went back to find out why and get one, I was told there is usually not a card included. It has to be bought separately. I thought then - and told the girl in the shop - it's a bit like buying a car then being told I'll have to buy the motor separately, or the wheels, so I can drive it. 

[Carlo]

Actually it's like buying a new car and expecting the tank to be full of gas...

The motor's there, you just couldn't make it go...

[Anthony Darby]

Actually my wife's laptop has Windows Vista and I have Windows XP Pro and we seem to be able to transfer data via pen or CD without any problems, in both directions.

[Paddy Tobin]

Lesley,

I bought a camera recently which didn't include a lens or a memory card.

Paddy

[Anthony Darby]

That's a coincidence Paddy because last year I bought a memory card and lens that didn't include a camera! Mind you, Vivienne has just bought a Canon printer which didn't include a cable. The same site (Amazon) advertised the cable for £0.01. Free postage for the printer, but not much change out of a fiver for the postage on cable as it was coming from a different vendor.